


Master of Ceremonies

by whilewilde



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Fluff, M/M, Police state, cabaret, george Orwell vibes but more gay, vaudeville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilewilde/pseuds/whilewilde
Summary: It’s the 1970s and the world is about to collapse in on itself.In a grotty local cabaret bar, Richie Tozier is planning his escape, until he meets Eddie.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

_ “It was as if the entire world had collapsed in on itself...” _

Those were the words that Richie had muttered to himself as he stumbled into the grotty cabaret club on fourth street. The gentle dum-dum-dah-dah-dum of the instruments played by glassy eyed musicians (of whom Richie once assumed, naturally, were young and full of life) filled the dimly lit bar.

His gut protested as soon as he entered, as if alerted of the presence of a spoiled dinner. You see, Cabaret isn’t a dirty word, at least not to everyone but Richie. For him, however, he associated it with his father, the smell of alcohol on the breath and arguing between mother and father, followed by the smash of a plate.

For years he had tried instead to associate it with liberty, and vaudeville, but secretly he knew it was neither. Sticky carpets and lights dimmed, the club concealed secrets within its walls.

It was the 1970s, and the world was different. You could feel it in the air. It was unsettled.

Yet to experience the heavy handed conservative politics of the USA and Britain, but unfortunate enough to know poverty. How stupid, Richie thought, that the latter should lead to the former. He would theorise - albeit shamefully- that some poor people got used to being so, and so they never asked for change. 

Richie was not one of these people. He had read Orwell with childlike fascination at the age of 13, and he never revisited it. For him, a re-read would be admittance that they were about to enter hell and he knew what was around the corner.

“I’ll tell you sumn’ boy, sometimes ignorance really is bliss.” His father would muse, the stench of cigars filling the room.

Perhaps he was right.

It was the beginning of the end of the world, and here he was, watching a handsome stranger sit all alone in a cabaret bar. His eyes fixed on the master of ceremonies, the man stuck out like a sore thumb.


	2. The Club

The handsome stranger was Stanley Uris. He doesn’t know it yet, but by tomorrow he will be dead. He will be found lying in a pool of his own blood in his kitchen, the bullet holes in his back will not be recorded and it will be declared an accident. For now, though, he is very much alive in the cabaret club, his beady eyes scanning the building. 

Stan is no stranger to the club- in fact, it would be his fifth visit that week, and it was only thursday- but he was still uncomfortable in its surroundings. The red carpet felt tacky, and the red shining hotel esque wallpaper made it even worse. Some people seem to fit right in between the sleaze and the grime, but not Stan. That’s perhaps how people started to notice.

Richie certainly did.

The disheveled hair, curls untamed by the gel he had pasted in, the clean face and the kind smile. The way his eyes never wandered from the emcee.

Ah, the emcee. He’s important too, but not for now. Tomorrow, he will still be alive.

Richie pushes his way through the mass of sweaty bodies in the crowd, secretly hoping that he doesn’t catch something as he makes his way towards Stanley. Stan barely notices him through the cloud of smoke produced from the cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth.

“You come here often?” A nervous Richie asks. Stanley sighs inwardly and takes a final drag of the cigarette.

It will be the last smoke he ever has.

“Does that work where you’re from?” Stan shot back, not even looking in Richie’s direction.

“I’m not-“

“Of course you’re not. Like how every straight man who comes here isn’t a sleaze bag and every woman who works here isn’t just waiting for her next big break.” Stanley’s tone was cold, but it was accompanied with a slight grin.

Richie pressed on, undeterred.

“I just thought you seemed...” he doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how not to offend “clean.”

“I’m anything but, especially in that department.” Stanley says jokingly, nervously fiddling with his wedding ring.

“Right.”

Richie doesn’t know what to say. In the moments of silence, Stanley finally allows himself to look at Richie. 5’10 (or maybe 6 foot? Stanley could never tell these things)and hair that stuck to his forehead and curled at the end. He seemed nervous, but harmless at the same time. More the new kid on the job than the leader of the heist.

“Does he always do these shows?” Richie finally asks, breaking the silence.

‘He’ of course, is referring to the Master of Ceremonies (or emcee, if you’d prefer. Stanley did). A wild-eyed, slim figure of a man, dressed in black tie and his face as pale as a sheet of paper. Richie wasn’t sure what an emcee was- that would come later- but he was fixated by how he moved, like a marionette manned by a drunkard.

“Oh yeah, every night. They say it’s like a break from all the politics.” Stanley waves his hands at the mention of politics.

“Everything is politics.” Richie corrects him, his tone suddenly abrupt.

The two are suddenly aware of how exposed they are. You aren’t supposed to talk politics anymore.

“Walls have ears, buddy.”

Stanley passes Richie a glass of scotch, which he knocks back immediately. The emcee pauses for a moment, taking notice of the two men, his mouth in an ‘o’ shape. Nobody else seemed to notice, but they did.

“He a friend of yours?” Asks Richie.

“I guess. He’s what they call a bit... strange.” Stanley grimaces apologetically at Richie, because he understands immediately what strange means.

“I want to meet him.”

As soon as the phrase left Richie’s lips he was embarrassed, and his face flushed a bright red. It couldn’t be helped, he supposed, he was just fascinated. Stanley shifted from one foot to the other, considering his options.

“Not tonight. Tomorrow. Come by tomorrow same time and I will, I promise.” The promise is made and sealed, without so much as a kiss.

“Why not now?”

“Patience.” 

Stanley extended his hand towards Richie and they settle on a firm handshake.

“What’s his name? Yknow, in case you don’t show?”

“I always show up.” Stanley pauses. Perhaps he knew, perhaps he didn’t. “His family name is Kaspbrak.”

As the Emcee began his next number, Stanley exited the club. He made sure to do his usual once over of the club before leaving, of course, but it would have made little difference to the outcome.

Tomorrow, Stanley Uris will be found dead and Richie Tozier will arrive at the club alone.


	3. Wonderful

Bill Denbrough wasn’t who Richie would call a friendly guy. In fact, Richie wouldn’t call him anything just yet. In the same ten minutes that Stanley Uris would meet Bill, it would be the first and last time. For now, though, Bill and Richie’s paths were not to cross.

If this was an article in the paper surrounding a murder committed by him- and which was well overdue by this time- a family friend would’ve described Bill as a quiet kid, timid and not a stranger to the random act of kindness. He had grown into a handsome adult- 6ft tall, broad shoulders and brown hair typical of a 80s tv presenter, streaked with grey.

He wasn’t an unfamiliar tourist to the town of Derry. He had grown up streets away from the Cabaret club, safe from sin under the watchful eye of born-again Christian protectors (also known as his parents, although Bill didn’t like to be reminded of the fact).

Becoming a police officer at 18 was a welcomed decision by his parents, and should it have been for the right reasons, Stanley Uris would not be dead in his kitchen 15 years later. Joyce, his mother, would gush about how he did his best to protect the community whilst he carried out unnecessary beatings and tried to keep the tunnel of his nose collapsing from cocaine usage.

After an incident involving his parents -one which is hazy at best, deliberately so- Bill left his hometown of Derry and found himself in New York City. There, he adopted a shoddy Scottish accent and became ‘Bruce Robertson.’

Under the alias of Bruce, Bill had no problem becoming the sort of filth that his father would’ve protested against. The circumstances as to which Bill found himself back in Derry were political. The entirety of the US had moved to the kind of state that equated to George Orwell’s wet dream. Anyone who went against the government would have to fall in line.

Enter Bruce Robertson.

15 years (and a day) later, in the local cabaret club, Richie was sit on a shoddy stool near the bar, rapping his knuckles against the marble countertop anxiously. Stan was nowhere to be seen.

This could be easily excused by the fact that he was currently being shot by Bill in the comfort of his own kitchen. As a nervous Eddie steadied his nerves and applied a rouge lipstick to complete his transformation into the emcee, Bill cursed as he noticed spots of blood on his once pristine white shirt.

For a second, Bruce Robertson is lost. A frightened child in the form of Bill replaces him, second guessing his choice of job. Second guessing his commitment to an idea. Then he is reminded that even thought against the state is a sign of weakness.

Bruce Robertson is back in Stanley Uris’ kitchen. Turning to take one final look at the body in front of him, he is at peace with what he has done. After all, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

20 minutes away, Eddie creeped onto stage, and Richie is enthralled.

“Wilkommen! Welcome! Ladies and Gentlemen I am your host for this evening.” The German accent is so bad that it’s borderline offensive, but the crowd laps it up.

“Aren’t you lucky?” Eddie asks flirtatiously, his eyes scanning the room and settling for a split-second on Richie.

At precisely the same time that Stanley’s heart stopped beating for good, Richie’s heart temporarily skipped a beat.

Lucky, indeed.

Grinning like a madman, the emcee begins a song to which the man at the bar is unfamiliar with. He can vaguely work out that it’s related to the opening of the club, but Richie had never been any good at learning German.

“He’s good, huh?” A redhead girl asked Richie, making him jump slightly.

“Oh, I guess.” Richie replied coolly. If he was honest (and he never was), he was still stung by Stanley’s no-show and wasn’t in the best mood.

“Here’s some advice, don’t try and be cool. This club is full of beautiful girls and your eyes are on ol’ Ed’s?” She linked their arms together in a rather bold display of confidence, earning a raise of the eyebrows from Richie.

Nothing that she said particularly alarmed Richie. He was at terms with his sexuality, and even if he wasn’t he supposed that places like this were safe ground to learn to accept it. What surprised him was the confidence the girl radiated. She was easily 5’5 and looked tiny next to Richie, even when sitting, and she was beautiful.

“Yeah so I’m afraid you won’t be getting a dime off of me.” Richie joked, quickly becoming unsettled when her face turned sour.

“That‘s not exactly my profession.” She fires back, although not loosening her grip on his arm.

“I’m... really sorry.” Richie began, authenticity oozing from his tone “what’s your name anyway?”

“I’m Beverly. Beverly Marsh!”

“Richie Tozier. I’m glad to meet you.”

Richie meant it.

Around 11pm, Beverly left Richie’s side with the promise to return briefly. He could be forgiven for not believing her, he had been burnt not long ago, after all. However, she was as good as her word and she returned arm in arm with the person who he recognised instantly as the emcee.

Even without all the make up, the slicked back hair and the rather effeminate features gave him away instantly. Gone was the sneering expression and the mean performative steak, he was simply beautiful, in the way that Wilde would speak of.

“Oh, are you two...?” Richie asked, waving his finger between the two.

“Oh, god no! I just look after him.” Beverly replied as Eddie smiles fondly at her. Richie noticed how his smile seemed to extend to his eyes. There was genuine love there.

“Well, she tries to keep me out of trouble.” Eddie adds shyly, offering his hand to Richie, which was accepted with a firm shake.

Richie’s mouth was agape for a split second, before he remembered his mother’s words of not looking like a fish, or something like that. It was too late, Eddie had already caught on.

“Oh, the accent. You thought up there was my natural accent?”

“Well, yes.” Richie admitted sheepishly, going a dark shade of red.

“Well at least someone thinks so. Bev has been hounding me for weeks, telling me it makes a mockery of the German culture of something dumb.” Eddie rolled his eyes as Beverly tugged harshly on his arm.

Eddie is called back on stage, so he briefly huffed and kissed Beverly on the cheek.

“Nice to meet you.” Eddie says, and he means it. 

As he pushes past a dumbstruck Richie, Eddie’s hand comes to rest for a brief moment on his shoulder. Richie will remember that touch for moments after, until the memory is soon tainted by the news of the death of his friend.

“I thought it was wonderful.” Richie manages to mutter to Eddie as he passes.

It was wonderful indeed. 


	4. The End of the World

The club was unusually busy that night, bustling with patrons and fumbling through the dark bar towards the stage. Sitting in a secluded corner was the emcee and Richie, 4 cocktails in and in deep conversation. Here they will remain for the evening. 

  
“See people never learn. They say never again but they vote in someone who’s willing to send someone else to slaughter.” Eddie winced as said ‘slaughter,’ as if it was an involuntary reaction.

Richie knew better than to give into naivety and assume that Eddie had simply had a bad experience on a farm a long time ago. He wasn’t young and will fully ignorant anymore. You couldn’t afford to be.

“Right, because they’d always choose the better option for themselves. Doesn’t matter who gets hurt... just as long as it isn’t them...” Richie trails off at the end, staring into space with a vacant look in his eyes.

Richie thinks that the tired emcee across the table from him doesn’t notice- partly because of the cigar smoke that seemed to blanket the entire club- but of course Eddie does. You learn to notice these things now. The State said it was essential to find out who was lying or hiding something against The State itself, but it had become a way for people to find those who thought like them.

Like Richie and Eddie.

Eddie sat with his legs propped up on an adjacent seat with plush velvet cushions, eyes closed and head thrown backwards in a dramatic fashion. His arm was upright on the table, but his wrist was limp and he used it as a substitute for wildly moving his hands as he spoke. Richie would have said that he looked like Oscar Wilde, but he didn’t want to disturb the benign beauty of the man in front of him.

“Elementary, Watson?” Eddie mumbled suddenly, making Richie jolt and nearly throw his glass of brandy six feet away from the table.

“I-uh-uh... what?”

“You were watching me. Like Watson does in the Sherlock books.” He tried to hide a playful smile but his eyes gave away how flattered he was.

“I’ve never read them.” Richie practically whispered, attempting to cover his embarrassment.

“Oh my GOD!-“ Eddie shouted, dramatically rising from his slumped position. “You are uneducated.”

“I’m not an idiot.” Richie was beginning to become annoyed with Eddie.

“Of course you aren’t.”

There was a gentleness to how Eddie responded, as he removed his feet from the extra chair and swivels so he was directly facing Richie. It was the first time that Richie really noticed the emcee. His face was tired, but not necessarily from age, and his eyes were bloodshot.

Fragile.

That was the word Richie would have used to describe Eddie, but he knew better than that. You don’t say those things anymore. You don’t bother making friends or forming relationships because one day one of you will just disappear.

That’s how it has been for a long time.

Children believed it had always been that way, and the textbooks told them so too. No one bothered to correct anyone anymore. It just wasn’t worth the fuss so everyone travelled around not really saying what they meant, and even tried to stop thinking altogether, because it was easier that way.

“Do you think... things will ever be different?” Richie asked, hesitating slightly and peering over his shoulder before asking.

“Ask yourself this: what are your principles? Are you in a room full of people who think the same as you? There will always be hope as long as there’s places like these.”

“What are you boys talking about?!” Beverly’s fake southern drawl took Richie by surprise as she slipped into the chair beside him, placing her hands on his knee.

“Oh, yknow, just how terrible everything is.” Richie snapped back.

Beverly was very different to Eddie. She was carefree, as if the entire world collapsing around her made no different whatsoever as long as it avoided her house. Richie being the perpetual worrier made them an odd combination, but it worked.

“Stop being so dramatic! Right now we are in the best club in the entire universe and you’re more concerned with that’s going on... out there.” Beverly waved her hands wildly as she spoke, narrowly missing Richie’s face on a few occasions.

He was used to it at this point. Sharing a room had brought worse challenges in his time. Besides, he needed friends.

“Out there, in here. Same difference. You don’t escape politics, darling.” Eddie slipped into a terrible British accent, earning a laugh from Beverly.

Perhaps without the attempt at a joke, she would have noticed that it was a scathing insult. Somebody did notice though. Somebody that the trio would not yet know until precisely a week later, sat around the same table.

“Alright, stop trying to impress someone with that shitty accent,  _ love _ .”

Richie doesn’t notice, or perhaps wouldn’t even realise who Beverly was referring to. His thoughts were very far away indeed.

For now though, they do not know the Scottish stranger, and whilst Richie and Eddie are afraid, Beverly is blissfully unaware.

For now, the emcee’s nightmares haven’t returned. Instead, he dreams of Richie Tozier.

For now, they are safe in the cabaret club, and they will be the only three past closing time.


	5. Bottle

Richie can’t remember when he first noticed that Stanley had really disappeared. Not just high-tailed it out of the country, or even stopped going to the club following some vague self discovery bullshit, he was actually gone. People had begun to call them ‘The Disappeared.’ The State called them nothing at all, because if you didn’t acknowledge that they existed in the first place, then you didn’t have to acknowledge that they were missing.

The thing about The State is that absolutely no one remembers how they came to power, or if indeed they even did get power in the first place, they just remember it always being there. It wasn’t like with political powers; there was no head of The State, at least not physically, because you can’t kill an idea. Even if you remove the root you can’t force people to believe that things are the way that you see them.

Slowly, books went too, and those who were quite adamant that there had indeed been a book called ’Slaughterhouse 5’ for instance, were met with blank stares or raised eyebrows. Eventually they grew tired, as did their minds, and they began to question wether such a book ever did really exist. After all, wasn’t it The State that had assured them that it didn’t exist? What reason would there be to lie?

Eventually The State just moved in as the people became apolitical. It moved into their homes and they did nothing about it, partly because it wasn’t worth the trouble to do so, and partly because they began to believe that The State had been there since forever, hadn’t it? History became split into a list of things that they thought had happened, but actually didn’t, and the new reality. There was no World Wars, no British Empire, no Boer War -in fact these countries didn’t really exist- and those who had spent years learning about such things resigned to the idea that they had simply mislead. The ’New History’ was simply a step into discovery and a way forward.

People like Stanley Uris weren’t convinced, though. It’s easier to get rid of the older generation that lived through such events and frankly are too stubborn to change their minds either way. They just died of old age, or dementia, or a heart attack, or some kind of underlying health condition that doctors had just failed to pick up on for 40+ years. Nobody questioned it because The State reassured them that their new doctors were much more experienced, and they needn’t worry, normal service would be resumed soon.

Stanley was neither old enough to simply get rid of, or young enough to convince that he had simply been mislead like everyone else. Stanley noticed when they went for music first. Suddenly there was no such band as the Sex Pistols, and if they did they certainly didn’t call for Anarchy or snipe for the Queen. He watched in silent disbelief as his parents agreed that their son never had a ‘punk’ phase after all, and such bands were just figments of his over active imagination.

So, he became a target.

He was 6’3 in height, had curly brown hair and brown eyes, physically fit but always looked a bit dead behind the eyes. That’s what the file that Bill Denbrough had in his apartment said about Stanley said anyway. Uris had been a history teacher for 10 years and had really thrown himself into his work following the death of his wife of 4 years, and he was beloved by his students, until they eventually forgot about him too.

Following his death, the kids who once used him as an example of a teacher who had ‘changed their life,’ would scratch their heads and struggle to remember his name. The more strong willed ones would remember how he laughed, or how he looked, but that would fade too. It was the way things had to be.

Bill knew this as he stood over Stan’s dead form, his body practically shaking as he tried to hold back the tears. The State had sent Bill on jobs like this before, but never exactly like this, never to a friend. Bill sat on the floor, the blood soaking his jeans as he pushed himself back into the corner of the kitchen, his eyes fixated on the bullet hole in Stan’s forehead.

He began to wonder if he too would forget Stanley Uris.

“I can’t ride a bike!!” A teenage Stanley practically screamed as Bill doubled over in hearty laugher.

“Stop being such a dick, everyone can ride a bike!” Bill shouted back, Stan sticking up his middle finger in response.

“Right, I’ll ride this down the hill, okay? And y-you can get on the back-“

“But then I have to touch you!” Stanley contorted his face into a grimace as he dramatically draped his arms around Bill’s waist and hopped onto the back of the bike.

“I don’t think I’m infectious, dumbass.” Bill mumbled as he began to set off, picking up a steady pace as they approached the peak of the hill.

The bit in between was fuzzy, but Bill was sure that Stan had raised his foot slightly and accidentally knocked his foot off of the pedal. All he remembers is the two lying on the grass, the bike 2 feet away from them, and the pain. Before he even before to checked himself for cuts, he crawled over to Stanley who had a look of guilt on his face.

“Are you angry with me, Bill?” Stan asked sweetly, wringing his hands together (a nervous reaction of sorts that Bill had grown fond of. (You could always rely on exactly two things in the universe: Stan to be nervous, and do the hand thing, he would say).

“Furious.” Bill puffed out his chest and folded his arms across his chest.

“Bill I-“

“I am s-so angry.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t-” Stanley was practically pleading at this point.

“But it was the most fun I’ve had all summer, and besides-“ Bill lifted up his elbow gingerly, covered in grazes “I have war wounds.”

Stan wiped his eyes and lay down in the grass beside Bill, watching the clouds and softly remarking when they spotted a cloud that vaguely resembled something other than a cloud. Bill remembered how the sky was the kind of blue that you’d get in picture books as the sun beat down on them, and how the crickets were so loud they could barely hear each other. Most of all, he remembered the heat.

They said that the sun in Derry rarely came out for more than 5 minutes, and even if it did, it would never be long enough to bring the temperature up a few degrees. That day, though, the air was so humid that you could practically choke on it, and the warmth was suffocating. As Bill dragged himself from Stanley’s house 20 years later, he felt the heat almost scorch his back as he left the house he had spent many evenings in as a chid to burn.

In his dingy 50 dollars-a-week room, Richie awoke with a start. He had sweated enough in the night to create the kind of outline you’d see on a low budget cop show on his sheets, and his hair stuck to his head. Stumbling to the shower in the dark, he tried to remember what had disturbed him so much.

Stepping out of the shower 15 minutes later, Richie felt no better. Memory was often unreliable, but this was, frankly, taking the piss. It started when Eddie had finally asked how Richie knew his name. Eddie had assumed that Beverly had told him- even Eddie remembered it that way- but something didn’t sit right about that. Their first conversation wasn’t as hazy, and was sure that he had asked about Eddie by name first.

Then where did he learn it?

“Probably from a friend of mine?” Eddie inquired, raising his eyebrows in mock concern.

“Or a lover…” Beverly added, the cheeky grin returning to her lips once more.

Friend. That was it, he was sure of it.

“Don’t be stupid, I don’t have any friends.” Eddie retorted when Richie had told him just that.

“Any, ever?”

“Well, I… No, just Beverly I’m pretty sure, and we aren’t even friends.” Richie would have laughed if he wasn’t suddenly interrupted by a thought.

Back in his room 2 hours later, Richie placed a hand against his bathroom wall to steady himself as it all came back to him in tides so overwhelming that he thought they would drown him right there and then. He hastily put on a t shirt and shorts, his clothes sticking to his still wet body, as he hoped that the people he needed to see would be awake.

Beverly didn’t have time to sleep enough to be hungover as a frantic knocking awoke both her and Eddie. The arrangement would have been odd to some, but Beverly was practical, and what was more practical than pretending that your gay boss was actually your very heterosexual husband to spare a few dollars? Besides, it meant that they could live closer to the club, Beverly had said to Eddie as she moved in before he even had time to say no.

“What the fuck do you want?” Beverly shouted, throwing the door open to reveal a dishevelled Eddie.

“You aren’t gonna let me in?” Richie asked sheepishly, thrown off by her hostility.

“Beverly, love, just let him in.” Eddie called, who Richie could see from the small opening in the door.

As relaxed as ever, he was sprawled on the bed, cigarette hanging from his mouth and book in hand as he draped a silk dressing gown over his slim frame. As Beverly moved aside and practically dragged Richie in, he noticed how unbothered the emcee was, eyes closed and his chest moving up and down in a slow rhythm as if he had fallen asleep. Richie was quick to remind himself that this was probably as much of a performance to him as being in the club was

Beverly walked across the room, lifting Eddie’s legs momentarily whilst she sat in the space that they once occupied as Richie sat on the floor, suddenly feeling as if he had made a huge mistake. No one looked at one another whilst a heavy silence filled the room, which Richie knew was often replaced by various records.

Much to everyone’s surprise, it was Eddie who spoke first.

“So...?”

“So, this is gonna sound crazy but hear me out. I know who told me about you guys. You had a friend, his name was Stanley Uris-"

“Doesn’t sound familiar.” Beverly interrupted as Eddie rolled his eyes in response and sat up, giving Richie his full attention

“Go on.”

“Right and he was this intellectual type. He told me he would meet me the day after my first to the club, but he wasn’t there. I didn’t even realise he didn’t show up, but I remember how I felt. It was like-“ Richie struggled to find the words, pressing his hands to his chest.

“Like you were mourning.” Beverly muttered, her eyes still firmly fixed on the clock on the bedside table.

“Exactly!” Richie recomposed himself, silently berating himself for being so enthusiastic “-So I think. Well, you know…”

They all knew.

“Right.” Eddie responded quietly, before looking Richie straight in the eyes and raising his voice “-I think you’re fuckin’ insane, man. The only people I’ve ever known are in this room.”

Confusion must have been evident on his face because as he went to stand up, Eddie put his hand on Richie’s shoulder and gently pushed him down again, gesturing towards the ceiling. Beverly had mentioned in passing before that the walls were thin, and not everybody in the club saw things their way.

They must have been sat completely silent for at least 5 minutes, like human statues, until Beverly crossed the room, slammed the door and then moved to the turntable. The minute that Frank Sinatra’s room filled the room, they all began to breathe once more.

“I’m just going to go and steal a bottle from behind the bar. God knows, Richie looks like he needs it.” With that, Beverly swiftly exited the room, closing the door as quietly as she could.

Eddie had hardly noticed the silence until it was broken. Richie had found himself overcome with grief, and it all came far too quickly for him to do anything to stop it hurting so much. Remembering the words of his mother (‘just let it hurt. Let it hurt and then you can heal’) Richie collapsed to a heap in the floor, sobbing.

“Woah, woah, what’s wrong?” Eddie could’ve punched himself in the face for asking such a stupid question.

“His name. He never told me his name! It’s not fucking fair, man” Richie barely had enough energy to be angry.

Eddie gingerly crossed the room and sat in front of Richie, careful so as to not accidentally prod him with his feet. Whilst Eddie’s mother didn’t have any comforting sayings- in fact, she didn’t say much at all, partly because you can’t say anything when you’re dead- he tried his best to sooth Richie.

Despite some slight resistance, Eddie moved Richie’s hands from in front his face, tightly enclosing them in his own. From outside the room, Beverly could hear Eddie shushing Richie as his sobs grew quieter. Her hand rested on the doorknob, before removing it. Going back downstairs to the bar and nursing the bottle of rum to numb the sadness, as she had done for years previously, seemed like the right thing to do, at least for tonight.


	6. Hindsight

There is only really one word in the English language that describes the understanding of a situation only after it has occurred, and had lead to disastrous consequences.

The word is hindsight.

Of course, it is hard to tell when one is in a moment which will later be regarded as such an incident as to evoke hindsight.As Richie and Eddie lay beside one another in the small room, and Beverly’s blood slowly turned into alcohol in the bar below, they did not have the value of hindsight. Of course, the one person that should have was Richie. He wasn’t just intelligent, but he was perceptive and often sharp and unconvinced by how unbothered the world seemed by what was happening around them.

When the State began to declare that they were at war, Richie rolled his eyes and closed his ears, whilst his counterparts came to the defence of their ‘great country.’ They weren’t exactly sure who they were fighting against, or even how such a war came about, but it was as if a switch had just been flicked on one afternoon, and now the whole country was behind the State.

“Oh, I don’t know, boys. If there is such a person out to kill us all perhaps it’s for the best.” Beverly slurred the night after the incident, yet to experience a hangover.

“But there isn’t though, is there?” Richie shot back snidely, grimacing as he downed a glass of whiskey.

The gentle dum-da-da-dum-da of the orchestra continued, seemingly becoming louder after every round as the chatter of the modest crowd grew louder. Even Richie, with his hindsight and his comment sense and his kindness, failed to notice the tension in the air that night. If he had bothered to take a look around- rather than paying attention to the glass in front of him- he would have noticed how different the clientele looked that night.

If he had simply listened a little closer, he would have noticed how quiet Eddie was, and how no one was talking politics.

“I’ve had enough-“ Eddie shouted, thumping the table with his fist “-of this talk. Shut up!” He now nursed his sore first, looking around skittishly to see who noticed his outburst.

Nobody appeared to, but that didn’t mean that nobody was listening.

“Why don’t you just do your number and leave us alone?” Beverly asked, leaning against Richie for support.

Richie suspected that if he had moved a muscle, Beverly would have toppled over, so he gently put his arm around her in a tight grip. The two never really got on, but Richie could sense that Beverly always happened to be playing a character, so he went along with her advances in order to find out who she really was.

Eddie rolled his eyes and stood up, storming off to the side of the stage, obviously annoyed with how his lifelong friend was cosying up to his… what exactly were they? It seemed strange to call them anything at all, but where Richie was from, you don’t even sleep in the same bed as someone- no matter how platonically- and call it nothing at all. You don't get to be that intimate and then just pretend like nothing happened.

Not in this decade, at least.

“Bev, what’s wrong?” Richie mumbled as she rested her head on his shoulder, her gaze fixed on the stage.

The orchestra rose to crescendo as the emcee stepped out on to stage, moving like a marionette, with an evil smirk fixed upon his rogue lips. Many who had seen the emcee before had never seen something quite like this. The ones who had never seen the emcee before were wary but impressed.

“Ladies and gentlemen! I am here to take away your troubles for the evening. Here we do not talk about whatever faces us on the outside, this is a home for the delinquents, yes?”

Richie had found the accent funny the first time, grating the second, and thought Eddie was probably guilty of some kind of hate crime the third time. “You know, he told me last night that this-“ Richie gestured to Eddie’s persona on stage “-was okay because Germans should learn to take a joke.”

“I would expect that from an American.” A thick Scottish accent startled both Richie and Beverly as they swivelled around in their chairs to see Bill Denbrough (or Bruce Robertson, if you would prefer) standing in front of their table.

His hair was disheveled and streaked with grey, his face was rugged but handsome, hardened by years of going it alone. Chest puffed out and hands slung in the pockets of his grey tweed trenchcoat, he looked like a sad impersonation of a DI in retirement. If only Richie or Beverly could physically see the blood of Stanley on his hands, or understood why he was in the club that night, they would have never let him sit down.

“Mind if I sit down, folks?” The two never really had a chance to answer, as Bill had already pulled up a chair and had stated himself at the table.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Richie replied, looking to Beverly for agreement.

If Richie had paid just a tiny bit more attention to the look in her eyes, he would have noticed that Beverly was pleading for him to say no. Pleading for him to return to his rude and introverted self just for a few minutes, just for long enough to deter Bill from entering their lives.

“And you are…?” Richie asked, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag, trying to settle himself.

“Bruce, Bruce Robertson. At least I think so-“

“You’re not from these parts, are you?” Beverly asked, cutting Bill short.

“I am, don’t let the accent deceive you darling, unless it’s working.” Bruce chuckled at his own joke, clearly pleased by how smooth he thought he was.

Neither of the two friends even cracked a smile.

The tension in the air grew so thick you could practically choke on it, and they soon became aware of watching eyes and how the orchestra had begun to revert to silence. Bill cleared his throat and seemed to jumpstart the club into action again as raucous laughter filled their surroundings.

“Let me ask you something. Have you ever looked around at who is here. I mean really looked around?” Bill asked, laying it on thick and leaning forward, raising his eyebrows.

When Richie and Beverly both failed to respond, partly out of confusion and partly because they were scared of the man in front of them, he continued regardless.

“They’re all government types you see, but no one notices. The slicked back hair, the darting eyes, looking like fuckin’ weasels. The pure fuckin’ evil of it, right? And nobody notices that they’re here, in a club where people talk politics.” As he spoke, it dawned on the two friends that he was telling the absolute truth.

“Except not tonight. Tonight, and for every night in the future, they won’t, because they’ve moved in. They’re sitting here, replacing everyone who went missing. Uh, who’s the old cunt on table 3-“

“You mean the guy who owns a butchers?!” Richie exasperated, suddenly frustrated by the ramblings of a mad man.

“That’s Mr Phillips.” Beverly added, her voice monotone.

“Aye, well where is he, eh? He was writing a book- secretly, mind- about how things used to be. Like a guidebook but for people wey some fucking braincells. He tells me this last night. Today his shop is closed for refurb they say, but he had no money pal, only the money he spent here.” Bruce jabbed his finger on the table in frustration.

“What’s your point, man?”

“You know what the point is. Those bastards had him knocked off and look who’s sitting in his place. The buck doesn’t stop with him, we’ll all be next and nobody gives a single fuck because they’ve been told that it’s all for the greater good, and it’ll never be them in that situation. Well sunshine, it’s looking like an us problem as of the second I sat at this table.” Bill finished his rant, downed the rest of Beverly’s glass of wine and relaxed. Back into his chair.

Richie then, at that moment, understood why they should have never let him sit at the table. From that moment onwards, they were all implicated in a movement against the State, and the club was no longer safe.

Elsewhere, a man was pawing through the files of the so-called “emcee” of the local cabaret club. Eyes rising to the gun on the kitchen table, he closed the file hastily and placed the gun in the kitchen drawer. It was far too early for things like this, he thought as he straightened his tie and headed out the front door.


	7. 7. 11PM, Friday

It had been a Friday when things went wrong. Bill remembered because it was the first day that Beverly and Richie had come to him for help. Beverly and Richie remembered because it was the day that Eddie went missing. The night before, the club had closed early. Beverly knew nothing about it, and had spoken to Eddie who had apparently been off-colour.

“But darling, why are we closing early?” She asked, pacing around their room as Eddie unbuttoned his shirt.

Eddie was still in his emcee makeup, his hair disheveled and he was slouched over, trying to conceal his face. Beverly had never seen him so flat.

“That’s the way things have to be, Bev.” Eddie’s voice wobbled as he tried to stop the tears from flowing. 

“But they don’t!” Beverly exclaimed, sitting next to Eddie and clutching his hands “-you’re not your usual self.”

“Richie was right. Everything happened too fast and I didn’t notice.” he mumbled, leaning into Beverly.

She wrapped her arms around him, shushing him as she rocked his shivering body back and forth. Had this been any other day she would have joked that he was ruining her dress. Not because she was cruel, but because she knew that Eddie could not stand melancholy.

Tonight was different, though, and as the white makeup made an unmistakable stain on her red dress that she would never get out, she said nothing. Around them, the world was burning, and they only had each other. It truly was the end of the world.

“Isn’t the club our safe place?” The question was intended to bring just as much reassurance to Beverly as it was to Eddie.

“We’re under new management.”

It was as if when Eddie spoke those words, everything became real. The inevitable was finally upon them, and they were just scared children, who had only read about countries burning in history books.

“I never thought I’d live through history, you know.” Eddie mumbled after a few short minutes, laughing weakly.

“I don’t think anyone expects to.”

They certainly didn’t. Neither did Richie who, at present, was at home asleep in bed. He had attended the club earlier in a foul mood, scowl permanently fixed to his face, ignoring practically every kind smile and attempts at conversation.

Richie had briefly been involved in a scuffle outside, in which a young man had attempted to tell him how things really were. He was handing out leaflets about how The State was entering a new phase of keeping its people safe: full house inspections. Any material found to be against The State was to be burned and the owners taken for ‘correction.’

Well, of course, filled with several glasses of whiskey, Richie gave this kid hell, not expecting him to have backup. Soon, Richie was piled on by 4 men, only managing to land a few punches before they were pulled apart by workers of the club who had heard of a commotion outside.

Amongst them was Eddie, pulling Richie inside and into the bar, much to his protests. Richie was prepared to fly off the handle once more at Eddie- how dare he stop Richie when he was the one in the right- but stopped when he saw how wounded he appeared.

“I’m sorry.” Richie mumbled, the demeanour of a naughty child, not a grown man who had nearly been shot for being too mouthy.

“You’re not sorry, Rich.” Eddie replied, sighing as he turned away.

Richie grabbed his arm in desperation.

“Of course I’m not sorry, but what was I supposed to do?? Those people, they they-“

“You think I don’t know?!-“ Eddie practically exploded, trying to keep his voice at a reasonable level “but over the last 3 days 5 workers have disappeared. I know every outburst to you is you proving yourself but we’re the ones who have to pick up the pieces and I am fucking terrified.”

Eddie’s eyes were wide with fear and Richie loosened his grip, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I won’t let anything happen to you-“ Richie began “-or Beverly.” He was quick to add.

“I’m not worried about me, and Beverly can handle herself better than the two of us put together. I’m worried about you.” Eddie shook off Richie’s hand, leaned forward and gently placed a kiss on his cheek.

Mouth open wide in an ‘o’ shape, Richie didn’t have time to even process what had happened before Eddie disappeared. Ten minutes later, a thoroughly confused and sour faced Richie downed another whiskey.

If he was to tell the truth- and Richie wasn’t in the habit of doing so- he was riled up because it wasn’t the way he saw things going.

“For one, it’s not even a proper kiss. I mean, does it count?? Friends do that all the time, right?” Richie mumbled to himself, ignoring the concern emanating from the young bartenders face. 

They were probably used to it by now.

“I think it counts.” The barman interrupted Richie’s train of thought with his cheery disposition.

Just when Richie thought his mood couldn’t get any worse, mr fucking Rodgers inserts himself into a conversation. Richie lazily gave him the once over, dressed in a white button up shirt, black slacks and smart black shoes. His hair was pressed flat by insane amounts of hair gel, but a few curls still got free. How, Richie wasn’t quite sure. Maybe sheer will alone.

The barman was undoubtedly handsome, clean shaven and a million dollar smile paired with kind eyes. Someone like that did well in places like this, Richie supposed.

“You’d say?” Richie asked, deciding to humour the stranger.

“Well, sure. If I was going steady with a woman, or a fella, if you’d prefer-“ the barman added quickly “any kiss counts.”

“Going steady? What era are you from? Fuckin hell.” Richie replied, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Same as you, but a bit younger.” He quipped, scanning the bar for potential customers.

“How’d you end up here then, uh...” Richie trailed off.

“Darren. I don’t know, I guess I just needed to get out of the house. I’m a pilot in my spare time.” Darren explained, dropping in the last sentence as it was something as simple as knitting.

“Dude, you can fly planes?!” Richie exclaimed, before remembering his manners “I’m Richie.”

“Oh, I know. He doesn’t shut up about you.” Darren replied sweetly, gesturing towards the emcee.

The conversation had died a few minutes before Darren gestured for Richie to lean across the bar. Obligingly, he did just that as Darren muttered something so that no one else could hear.

“Doesn’t the orchestra sound sad today?”

Richie hadn’t noticed before. In fact, he was sure that no one else had either. It was like the usual dum-dum-dum-duh-dah but slowed down, and with the instruments out of tune. It reminded Richie of when he used to accidentally play his fathers records on the wrong RPM.

“But the audience, they don’t notice.” Richie whispered back as Darren grabbed his hand, passing a piece of paper into a hand.

“No one does anymore. They’re all in hell. They just don’t realise yet.”

A cough from a patron at the bar caused Richie to retreat back onto his stool, shoving the piece of paper into his pocket.

Several hours later, the club was in uproar as it announced that it would close early. Never in its history had it done such a thing, the crowd protested. Well, there was always time for change, men in uniforms replied as they shoved people out into the streets.

Richie had been sleeping soundly in bed at the time, peacefully aware of the impending apocalypse. On that Friday, a few hours after closing, Beverly would bang on the door of Richie’s apartment, with enough force to destroy it. Richie would wake in a daze to a crying Beverly, who would declare that Eddie had gone missing.

That Friday at 11pm precisely, they would make their way to the flat of Bill. They would beg for his help, fearing the worst for Eddie.

For now, though, it is 9pm, and Richie is fast asleep. How nice, he thought on occasion, would it be to sleep through the end of civilisation itself?


	8. Mike

Richie felt as though the sadness would swallow him whole, devouring everything that made him human, leaving just a body behind. Being drained was hardly a new feeling, but the usual ebb and flow- ups and downs- of his mood had left him tired. Sure, he could cope better now, but he found himself wanting to do so less. He considered, body sprawled our across the grotty club stage, that if he should lay still enough he may disappear entirely.

Sadly, he did not.

It had been 5 hours since they had rocked up on the doorstep of Bill. 5 hours, Richie contemplated in silence, was a long time for someone who had disappeared entirely. They all knew that as they sat around the rickety wooden table in Bill’s kitchen, the cigarette smoke making it seem as though they were in a smog ridden Victorian London. 

On arrival, neither of the three said a word, fearing- albeit correctly- that whatever they said after would end up in someone else’s hands. That was the thing about the State, if they could get into your head, they sure as hell would get into your home.

“Tea?” Bill mumbled, his eyes barely open as he began to pad around his small kitchen.

The kitchen was uncharacteristically Bill. Pink walls, white tiles that seemed as if they would be dirtied the minute a shoe stepped on them, a mint green fridge, and a barely used oven filled the room. Far too clean for a man like him, Beverly would whisper to Richie as the kettle whistled violently.

“Listen, I think we’re better talking plainly.” Bill said as soon as the tea was done, placing a mug in front of Richie and Beverly, them nodding in return.

“What about...” Beverly tailed off, pointing to the ceiling.

Richie let out a snort, earning a loud smack on the arm for it. His expression softened when he saw how tired she was, her hair sticking out at all angles and prominent dark circles under her eyes. Had the circumstances been different, Richie supposed he would’ve compared her to a panda, but it wasn’t the right time. Besides, he hardly looked well himself.

“I’d say you two were proven guilty the second you stepped foot in here. If it makes you feel better-“ Bill picked up a remote resting on the counter, passing it to Beverly “-we’ll talk in the living room.”

The sound of Grease filled the house at an alarming volume as the three made a plan. Less than a few miles away, a man sits in a office, absentmindedly typing away on a keyboard and sighing.

It really wasn’t supposed to be this way.

I mean who had even heard of a split shift that lead onto midnight anyway? Mike Hanlon couldn’t help but feel like he had drawn the short straw for the fifth time this week. Never mind his personal life, or his part time job of running the library, he was here because he was a yes man.

The problem with yes men is that they often overstretch, and Mike had reached breaking point months ago. The weirdest thing was that Mike couldn’t remember how he got this job.

His friends laughed when he said that. They remembered him telling about this massive promotion, a chance to work on the government, they said. To Mike, it was as if he had woken up one morning and just knew how to do everything.

An honourable job, that’s what everyone had said. His mom was beaming with pride whenever anyone asked what her son was up to, and wasn’t he just lovely? She’d agree, of course, partly because he now paid the bills, partly because maybe she did really love him.

If she did, she had funny ways of showing it.

“You got anything?” Ben, his colleague asked, pulling the headphones off of Mike’s head.

“Nothing at all.”

“Well, keep an ear out, you know who we’re after. They’re calling it the worst cause of collusion against the state in a century.” Ben flicked a file onto Mike’s desk, laughing and whacking him hard on the back as Mike just laughed uncomfortably. 

As Ben turned and began to walk down the corridor, Mike spoke up.

“Uh, Ben, there was...”

“Yeah?”

“Actually, yknow what, there’s nothing. Just letting you know Grease is on cable right now.” Ben smiled as he retraced his steps, whistling the tune to you’re the one that I want as he went on his way.

Mike had always thought that things seemed different now, but most of all he was convinced that he didn’t remember how he ended up in this job. So, as he sat listening to the conversation between the three in the house a few miles away, he knew that it was time to make a call that would entangle him in conspiracy.

His mother had always said that he was far too stubborn.


	9. I Am

“It’s the end of the world.”

“It’s the end of the world.”

“It’s the end of the world.”

"I am?"

The officer - who couldn’t have been older than 22 at most- crouched down so that he was at the same height as Eddie, who was sprawled out on the floor. Lost in a daze, Eddie only managed to meet his gaze briefly, to look in his boyish face and to despair.

“They’ve got you now too-“ Eddie have a maniacal giggle, ignoring the stinging of the various cuts and adorning on his face “not the children. I thought we’d be okay as long as they didn’t get to the children.”

The young officer was well aware that he was the subject of the ramblings from the mad man, and he felt practically sick. He must have looked a scary sight, a man in regulation uniform; black boots and all. Whatever sympathy he had for Eddie had walked out the door the moment he was dragged in here, and he looked upon the man with disgust.

Eddie hadn’t just been physically destroyed, but emotionally too. He had even given up on curling into the foetal position now, and he simply sat slouched in the corner, head resting lazily on his chest like a crumpled paper doll.

“What do you mean exactly?” The Young officer asked curiously as Eddie had to stifle a laugh.

Part of him was still convinced that he was in a low budget spy drama, and half expected a British or German accent to come out of his mouth. Instead, it was the American that Eddie had grown quite accustomed to in all his years of living. Ironic, he thought, how The State had everyone believing that the enemy looked and sounded nothing like them, when indeed they were anything but.

“People like you... you’re dragging the rest of us into hell.” Eddie replied weakly, his breathing growing laboured with every breath he took.

“To hell? Man, you guys just don’t get it, do you? I just want my kids to grow up in a world that’s better for them.” The child responded, raising a hand to absent-mindedly brush his fringe from his forehead.

“For who, and for what purpose? What if your child does not think like you, or they want to find comfort in a book as you might have done when you were younger? Where do they go for that when all the books have been thrown away and the act of thinking has been banned?” Eddie had had a moment of clarity between all of the haze and the pain, and was semi-conscious enough to make such a statement before he slipped back into muffled ramblings.

Seeing such a young face attached to such an angry heart weighed on Eddie’s half-conscious mind. These things were read about in History books, they were never supposed to happen now, they were past all that after all. A boy that young should have just discovered politics, and shouldn’t be on the wrong side of it. Someone so young should be out with their friends, wondering what they will be when they grow up, not fighting in a war that they barely understand, practically cannon fodder for people who were too cowardly to do anything other than declare war.

Sitting on the cold, hard cell floor, fighting off the haze that seemed to suffocate his vision, Eddie realised that for him, his time was up. There’s only so long you can fight before it gets you too. In the last few minutes, Eddie was trying to remember as much as possible, his thoughts racing as he tried desperately to memorise like a student the morning before an exam. As the darkness swallowed him whole - principles and all- he had nothing to cling to at all. He was alone.

Richie had purposefully avoided the club over the next few days, trying to focus on something other than his friend who was either dead, or in horrendous pain as he sat quite comfortably in his own bed. The only reason he had not blown his brains out (yet) was the subject of a mysterious call all three of them had received as they sat in Bill’s living room two days previous, mulling over a plan of epic proportions which would later come grinding to a halt. Bill had cautiously lifted the receiver as it might have been a bomb, lifting it to his ear and laying his Scottish accent on thick in the hopes that whoever was on the other end would be confused.

However, Bill barely got a word in edgeways before he slumped down on the sofa, receiver still to his ear, stunned into silence. After mumbling for a while and a series of “oh, okay’s” Bill slammed the receiver down and went pale. Richie and Beverly had naturally decided that the only thing to do was to bolt off and run to some faraway country that they knew nothing about, but Bill placed his hand gingerly on Beverly’s arm and said:

“It’s okay, he’s a friend, I think. He told us that Eddie will be sent home to the club in 2 days.”

“How do we know they’re not bullshittin’ us?” Richie yelled, rising to his feet and balling his hands into fists.

“Why else give us a warning? He’s no use to them anymore.”

“What the FUCK is that supposed to mean?! Use? Like he’s a fuckin’ object?”

Richie was up in Bill’s face now, and it took a monumental effort from both men to not punch the other square in the jaw. Beverly rolled her eyes, placing a cigarette in her mouth and lighting it, as if she had simply got bored of a conversation at a family picnic.

“Boys, may I remind both of you that this is not the time to be at each other’s throats? You could easily bring each other down if you want, but since that’s not the case can you just shut up?!” Beverly interrupted, raising her voice.

2 days later, Richie simply laughed when he thought about her comment, but he wasn’t laughing at that exact moment. None of the three can remember that happened after (which at this point is a worrying, yet common, occurrence) but it must have ended amicably, as proven by Richie’s lack of black eyes or cuts on his face. It was 5pm that evening, and he was inspecting his face in the grotty bathroom mirror, huffing in defeat as his attempts to make any impact whatsoever by pulling at it with his hands fell flat. A frantic knocking at the door interrupted him, and he hurried to the door, hoping to god that it wasn’t the landlady to whom he owed three months rent.

“Alright, alright!” Richie bellowed, opening the door to find Beverly running directly into his chest and wrapping her arms around him.

“Eddie’s back!” Beverly shouted before Richie even had time to ask what the sudden display of affection was for.

Beverly didn’t have to say another word, and in a few minutes they had practically ran down the now empty street, ignoring the stares from onlookers who thought they must be mad, or in some kind of trouble with the police to be running that frantically. Richie sprinted forward towards the clubs red, rotting wood doors, dragging Beverly along with him as he entered.

Ignoring the friendly smile from the bartender (Darren was his name, Richie supposed, although he wasn’t really focusing on that), he headed backstage with Beverly hot on his heels, desperate to catch up and catch her breath. Any excitement he felt got up and walked out of the damn club on its own as soon as he saw Eddie perched on a wooden chair, even skinner than before, staring vacantly into space.

“I meant to… tell… you.” Beverly said in between pants, but Richie silenced her with a wave of his hand as he crouched down so that Eddie was exactly at eye level with him.

“Hey, buddy, you good? We’ve been waiting for you, y’know?” He asked as gently as possible, placing his thumb and a finger under his chin and slowly lifting Eddie’s head so that he could see the damage.

No amount of Emcee makeup was going to cover the purple and blue bruises that adorned his neck and face, swelling to grotesque size and partially obstructing his eyesight. Vacant eyes stared back at him, drained of all colour and any visible emotion, replicating that of an animal that had been the recent victim of taxidermy and his lips were stained with old blood, causing them to crust. When Richie looked into those eyes, he finally understood.

Eddie didn’t answer.


	10. The Place, The State.

When he was in The Place- simply called The Place because it really was just nothing worth naming- Eddie could only dream of the ways thing used to be. Politics, he decided, could be thought about later, but he longed to grasp onto nostalgia, as if he remembered often enough, the universe might take pity on him and wake him up 20 or so years previous. He dreamed of watching The Sound of Music on their small television, young Eddie glad to just share some kind of experience with his mother who beforehand had been rather cold and disconnected, as if someone had just upped and left after he was born, leaving the lights on their way out. Mother (and it was always Mother, not mom) hadn’t sang for 10 years, but when ‘My Favourite Things’ began, she sang along as sweet as honey and Eddie recalled how her voice quickly became one of his favourite sounds, rather than something to fear. It didn’t change things, of course. Julie Andrews is not really like Mary Poppins unfortunately, but it was the first time Eddie could remember things being somehow different, as someone had taken a series of dots and connected them, filling in the outline with glorious colour.

It was the first time that he supposed things could be okay.

As he curled up to try and catch a wink of sleep as his head rested gently against the cold stone flooring, his mind threw more images out at random: the first time he had figured out what made him different as he realised that he saw Hollywood men the way men see Marilyn Monroe. Eddie would fawn over the liked of Marlon Brando, admiring their gently beauty and charming manner, and his mother would gush over her son who simply had all those posters of Cary Grant because he looked up to him. He saw the first time he made a friend at the age of 8, a short but fiery red haired girl, who the others in school had labelled as a ‘Tomboy’ which would later lead to other insults as she grew older. Eddie didn’t care. Beverly was shy but kind, and besides she loved musicals just as much as he had, so playground insults meant nothing.

With Beverly came the memory of the first time that she told him that she was leaving. The official reason that her father had got some fancy kind of promotion in the Netherlands, but they both knew that it was because Beverly was actually an undercover spy, and she had been sent on a mission that would take a while longer than the usual weekend or so. Eddie was sixteen when she disappeared, which was around about the time that he needed her more than ever, for he could make neither head nor tail of how he was supposed to be. It felt like he was simply dumped on the world without an instruction manual, and he didn’t know how to feel or how to just be. Beverly would return two years later, but in that time Eddie had simply got stuck at sixteen, waiting for her return, whereas she came back a completely different person. Good for her was the official line from Eddie’s lips, but they had known each other for long enough to know that things were not good for their friendship. The last time they would see each other for a further 10 years, Eddie cried in her arms and confessed that he was gay, and she gave him a knowing smile but said nothing other than the comforting words that his mother could no longer provide for him.

As Eddie tried to navigate himself in those two years, his mother had begun to lose herself, and began to forget small things. At first it was easy enough to brush off; where she placed her keys, wether she had left on the gas on, or wether she really had locked the door at night, but then it things had been misplaced. A notepad turned up in a fridge, and Eddie frowned as he read his own personal fact file scrawled in his mothers handwriting, the last sign that she was really trying to show him that she loved him by remembering him whilst everything around her slipped from her grasp. Naivety overtook logical thought, and because she hummed along happily to the tune of My Favourite Things, Eddie supposed that there was nothing wrong at all, and that it was understandable that she should forget his name sometimes. After all, she had a lot on her plate.

Things changed come the winter before his seventeenth birthday, though. Suddenly, she had nothing on her plate (though never at meals, Eddie would starve rather than see her go without) and she got worse. It was as if time had swept the rug out from under Eddie when they gave it a diagnosis and he began to realise that he really had taken the last fews for granted. Dementia has a scientific definition, of course, but Eddie just knew it as a thief of the one thing that should be untouchable and should belong entirely to a person. Memories was all he had, but his mother didn’t even have that, and it made his hurt physically ache to even try to put himself in her position, and sometimes he did wonder if there was any point in trying as with each passing day she simply took a another step towards losing herself completely.

Beverly had come back the June of his eighteenth birthday, party because she had heard from a friend of a friend that Eddie’s mother was in a bad way, but she simply couldn’t drop everything and come back. That March, she was gone entirely. On the worst days when she could barely form a sentence, Eddie thought if it wouldn’t be kinder to justice her permission to pass away, as if his love alone was holding her back from doing so. Sometimes, though, just sometimes, she would look at him and absolutely know who he was. A cheeky smile would find its way to her face and she would call him over by name to sit beside her on the sofa as she asked him how school was, and how that lovely young girl Beverly was, and when were they to be married? The third and final time she asked, she had ended it with a soft ‘I love you, whatever happens’ and was gone entirely.

Eddie reluctantly called an ambulance, mentally scolding himself for thinking that he wished that there was nothing that they could possibly do to revive her. When they arrived, it was 5:45PM exactly, the 25th of March, and Eddie fell to pieces.

“It’s going to be okay, you know that, right?” Beverly cooed gently, running her fingers through his hair.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Then Beverly left for 10 years.

Of course, he was angry when it happened, but he was young and stupid then. It was silly to expect someone to put their life on hold for a friend, especially when all he wished for her from the bottom of his heart was for her to do whatever was best for her. So she did, he supposed. Eddie simply began working the local grotty Cabaret club on autopilot, never paying attention to the acts or the handsy customers. At some point in between, he became the Emcee, but his brain had obviously considered that to be of no importance whatsoever, for the next scene that played in his mind was his first kiss. Not his first actual kiss, but the first that meant anything at all. Images of the night when he comforted Richie on his single bed in the room above the club that hadn’t seen the light of the day since 1903, as Beverly drank to oblivion in the bar below, a result of the deep guilt she still felt from not coming home a few months earlier all those ten years ago. The images reached rapid succession as they became more recent; the first time he slept with someone, the first time he actually slept in the arms of someone he loved, the first time he had considered that all 3 of them were due to die. The first time he partly knew how scared his mother had been in those fleeting moments of consciousness as she realised that she would soon die.

Eddie was brought round by the screeching of a violin, not unlike that of a fox mating in the heat of summer, and the painful groaning of the trumpet of the Orchestra. Home, he thought, but not quite as it should be. The piano keys were out of tune and played so painfully slow that Eddie cursed whoever the conductor was for not realising that half the audience would be dead or asleep by the time they made it halfway through the set. He found it hard to open his eyes or have a single coherent thought of anything other than the Orchestra, and how sad it sounded.

“Doesn’t it sound sad today?” He heard a voice ask, as confidently as if they had been old friends.

“What else should it be, exactly?” Eddie attempted to say back, but found himself stopped by a great weight on his chest.

“But the audience… they don’t notice.” A second voice answered back, one which Eddie could’ve firmly placed amongst that of someone he knew intimately if only he could kickstart his brain into noticing.

“Right, that’s decided then.”

Eddie was engulfed in darkness once more.

It had taken Richie a good half hour to get his head around the state of former friend and lover, Eddie, in which time Beverly had stocked up on the booze and eventually managed coax Richie into moving into a booth at the far end of the club, out of sight. The two of them practically dragged Eddie along with them, remarking to any curious club goers that he had simply had too much to drink, to which they would usually laugh out of sympathy rather than cruelty. As Beverly placed herself in one of the seats, she noticed how gently Richie had let Eddie into his seat, allowing him to slump back and rest before finding his own seat around the circular table and taking the drink that she had got him.

“Do you think there’s anyone in there?” Beverly asked rather unkindly, one step away from waving her hand in front of his hand if it hadn’t been for Richie’s scowling face.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know where to begin.” Richie answered glumly, necking a shot of vodka that had been placed on the table behind theirs, much to Beverly’s disapproval.

“Maybe you could try and be a bit positive, I feel awful.”

“At least he’s not dead?” Richie began, wincing “what do you have to be sorry about anyway? He thinks you put the stars in the fuckin’ sky, and he’d believe you if you told him so.”

So, as the crowd of patrons sat as still as statues, listening to the orchestra, Beverly told him the story exactly as Eddie had remembered it, with no more or no less detail. Richie sat listening in stunned silence, for he had not been aware of how far back they had gone until that moment. That was when everything suddenly seemed to make sense. Eddie was a smart guy, but his emotions betrayed him and it was clear as day that Eddie simply remanned at the club, unhappy and in the midst of something that he didn’t want to get caught up in, for the benefit of his childhood friend. Of course, it was neither’s fault, for Beverly had made sacrifices that she probably could’ve done better without. In simpler times, they were two peas in a pod.

When she finished her story, she sat back, expecting an onslaught of abuse from Richie, and so she was rather surprised when he laughed, growing so loud that even the Orchestra briefly stopped, only beginning again when Richie turned it into a coughing fit and held up his hand in apology.

“What’s so funny?” Beverly asked, her voice full of venom.

“You’re both so stubborn and you don’t even realise. You’ve been sticking your necks out for each other your whole damn lives but neither of you realise that you both feel as crappy for doing it as the other.” Richie explained, shaking his head in disbelief.

Beverly mulled over his observation before giggling quietly, sharing a smile with Richie.

“Have you ever considered leaving this place?” Richie asked after a few minutes of silence, his eyes firmly fixed on the empty stage.

“Why exactly would I want do that?”

Beverly asked the question as if there should be any answer at all, not even considering the twenty or so reasons as why she should seriously start considering it as an option. Richie had to almost hold himself back, reminding himself that she wasn’t an idiot. In fact, she was far from it, she had seen more and done more than he had two times over, but she just saw things differently. On the other hand, Richie had enough of living in the present and he knew that the ways thing were going, it was time to choose what side you were on.

“Look around you, things are different. I mean, the world is different. The State control everything but your fuckin’ thoughts, and I know this sounds insane but the proof is at the table with us right now!” Richie exclaimed, gesturing to Eddie, who looked exactly the same as he had twenty minutes prior.

“I’ve survived things that you have never experienced in your damn life! I’ll be okay! Besides, I have the club to think about. I’ve survived more than twenty years on this planet, terrible politics and all, and I’ll be damned if I turn around and run away from what I know because someone wants to take it from me.” Beverly replied sharply, banging her fist on the table.

“I know better than to think that anything that I say will a make a difference, but that’s because you and him are exactly the same… but, Beverly, we get to a point where your home isn’t home anymore. In a year, this place won’t be standing because they’ll deem it as immoral as the clientele! Then where does that leave you? You just become someone who didn’t do what they should’ve.” Richie’s ramblings had gone unheard, as he had suspected and he stared at his glass whilst he waited for Beverly to say something.

“So, what are we meant to do now?” She finally asked, breaking the silence, much to Richie’s surprise.

“You ready to stick your neck out one more time?”


	11. Fabulous places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: suicide

Richie drummed his fingers against the table and eyed the clock on the far end of the bar wall nervously.

3:05AM, two hours before the final incident.

Darren was whistling Auld Lang Syne to himself absentmindedly as he cleaned glasses with a dirty rag, wincing anytime one of the few regulars left took a sip from those grotty glasses. The long shifts had clearly taken a toll on him, even for a man so young who probably stayed up until 5am out of choice alone, and his was messy and unkempt, curls falling down in front of his eyes occasionally. Accustomed to the kind of job that practically required people watching as one of its skill sets, Darren had noticed how nervous Richie had been, and how quiet Beverly had gone around 1am, until she retired to bed. Eddie had no choice but to be there, but if the eyes were indeed the eyes of the soul, Darren swore he was waiting for death. Neither had been unlucky enough to end up in a death row situation (obviously), but there was a darkness behind Eddie’s eyes, as if someone had got in and taken his entire soul with them when they left again. 

“Goodnight Darren.” The final customer said, gently placing his pint down on the bar and sliding him $10.

“Thanks, you have a good night.” Darren replied, smiling and holding back a yawn so as to not be seen as impolite.

It took him 20 minutes to close down- shoddily at that, but closed nonetheless- and as he pulled on his black wool overcoat with the intention of heading out the door, going home and getting some sleep, he stopped to look at Richie. He had never seen a man so defeated and so small, nervously biting his nails, eyes fixed on Eddie as if he stayed there long enough he could bring him back. It was the look of a man who had seen what his future had held and decided that it wasn’t quite the way he had hoped. Darren placed his hand on his shoulder and sat down on the seat next to him, crossing his legs and legs as he stared thoughtfully at the pathetic specimen in front of him.

When they had first met, Richie was noticeably full of life. It was hard to explain, but very few people walked into a bar like this in their ugliest Hawaiian shirt and flares on, and from that moment onwards, Darren knew exactly what kind of energy he had. Richie’s hair, once perfectly framed for his face and groomed, now was incredibly long and stuck out at odd angles, probably the result of running his hands through it as a habit from the result of being too stressed out.

“You don’t seem freaked out.” Richie said quietly, forcing Darren to lean in closer.

“About what?” Darren could swear that sometimes he could still hear the orchestra playing after hours, but tried to focus on Richie.

“Eddie. You don’t seem surprised.” Richie clarified, in an accusatory tone.

“I know I haven’t been alive as long as you and may-maybe that means that I don’t know as much or I haven’t had the same life experiences, but I’ve seen this so many times before.” Darren admitted, a weak smile playing on his lips.

It’s at that moment that Richie actually looks at him, and he notices how defeated he looks. He couldn’t have been older than 23, but the dark circles under his eyes seemed to have become a permanent fixture, one that doesn’t come from simply not getting enough sleep. His entire soul was tired, as if he had lived at least 80 years in the last 10. Selfishly, Richie had been running around considering himself alone in a struggle that people he had overlooked understood far too well.

“You have more friends than you realise, I promise.” Then, sensing something else was on Richie’s mind “what are you still doing here anyway? You look like you’re waiting for a miracle to happen. Nothing ever happens at 3 in the morning.”

“The train to the airport departs in 2 hours. I can’t go home. Even being here puts us both in danger, but they’ll probably be waiting for me at home.” Richie was depressed and his tone was sullen when faced with his likelihood of making it out alive.

No one had to say who ‘they’ were, because both men knew exactly who ‘they’ were referring to. The State had found its way into everyone else’s heart and turned them something rotten, eating away at every last feeling that made them human, and rebuilt them again as walking piles of flesh and hatred. Even if The State were to disappear tomorrow, things had gone past redemption. There were children who were to be born into a place that didn’t support thinking anything at all and that their sole purpose was to grow up to be 16, and then to gain a badge of honour by going to war and dying in the process. For people like Darren, Richie, Eddie and Beverly, they were on borrowed time.

“Do you ever think there’s a place outside of here?” Darren asked as the clock ticked away.

“Of course-“

“No, I mean, a place that’s different to all this. I mean what if someplace is just exactly like here but they’re taught that we’re the enemy? What do you do then?” Darren’s question was a fair one, but it was a sign that 23 years had taken its toll on him.

“If it’s not… well, fuck it! If it’s not then we tried. That’s more than you can say about anyone else here.”

As the two mulled over the future, Bill is making final preparations. They’re on to him, he can tell. A man called Mike called again and told him. He even had the heart to ask what Bill would do now, but he didn’t have to give an answer, for to surrender his consciousness would be a fate worse than the one he secured. His final actions were to place the note in his breast pocket and kick the chair from under him.

Bill’s time of death will remain unknown, simply because no one will ever come to get him. His neighbours would notice the smell by the next week and someone might say something like: “what a troubled young man, but he helped me put put the bins once.” Just like that, Bill will no longer be Bill anymore, just a collection of a good deeds that never absolved him of the guilt that weighed him down like an anchor.

As Richie begins on a tangent about The State for the fifth time that hour, Darren reflects quietly. If he didn’t make it out of this city as it crumbled around them, his obituary would definitely say: “quiet, confident and much loved young man.”They would probably print a picture of him as a young boy, holding a Winnie the Pooh toy and grinning madly at the camera.

People often ask the theoretical question of what would they tell their younger self, obviously hinting at the fact that one might warn themselves about the horrific events that are due to follow. Darren always gives the same answer: “I’d just give up.” Not because he was suicidal (he wasn’t) but just because 20 years later, he was at the heart of a dying city, and he had never seen inhumanity like it. It was enough to make someone stop believing in poetry of hope and love.

“Listen, uh, I... I could fly you.” Darren muttered, cutting straight through Richie’s rant.

“Where would you even get a plane from?” Richie questioned, puzzled the sudden boldness of the young man.

“I think that’s my problem to worry about. Yours is if that if you get on that plane you’ll be back in this club 5 hours later.” Darren answered slowly, pausing now and again, sure that he could hear that damn orchestra.

“Ugh.. I guess, okay. But promise it’ll be safe?”

He didn’t answer.

Darren rose from his seat, tapped the 5 on his watch to indicate that he would be back soon, and casually strolled out of the bar. Briefly pausing before the door, he ran his hand gently over the rotting wood as if it was something holy. Then, he was gone.

“I’ll be back.” Richie suddenly announced, rising from his seat.

There was silence as Eddie wasted away from the inside out.

As Richie walked into Beverly’s room, he was surprised to find her particularly unbothered and reading a book, cigarette ash collecting on the bed beside her. Her only acknowledgement of Richie’s existence was her looking up briefly and smiling before returning to her book.

“What are you reading?” Richie asked, pacing back and forth in the box sized room.

“A book.” Came the reply. Richie didn’t have to look to know that she was smiling.

“Hmph-“ Richie crossed the room until he could reach the book, taking it roughly from her hands “the voyage of Doctor Dolittle?”

“Remember the time we all got drunk in the club and all four of us decided we would do a rendition of the entire musical?” Beverly had the fond, faraway look as she spoke.

“Think of the fabulous places you’ll visit with me...” Richie sang softly, doing a dance with an invisible partner around the room, making Beverly laugh. 

“I shall miss you, you know.”

“You’re coming with us, right?”

“You knew the answer before you began asking-“ Beverly silenced Richie with her hand as she continued “I know how you feel about it, and don’t think I don’t understand what’s going on out there, but I can’t leave. This city will be full of laughter again, and the people will dance, they will cry and learn of hope and the pain will dull . It won’t be the same, it’ll be better. Now, don’t say another word and let’s help you get ready.”

When they had finished packing not 20 minutes later, after Beverly had called Richie useless and they had a brief shouting match, they both became aware of the reality of what was facing them. To leave your friends behind was an act of cowardice, Richie thought, but he really had no choice. She had made her choice, and damn her for doing so.

Richie pulled her into a tight hug, and when he pulled away and held onto her, holding her at arms length so he could get one final look at his friend. She looked as beautiful as the first day he had walked into that club and had been practically terrified of her fiery nature.

“If... when I get there, I’ll write to you. Pages and fuckin’ pages. When everything is back to normal we can go on that adventure, eh?”

“Richie, I’ve always admired your ability to say the right thing. Look after Eddie, he really does think the world of you.” Her response was soft and quiet, as if she were afraid that such an admittance out loud would break the spell.

“You’re not going to say goodbye to him?”

“I’ve always told him everything I need to.”

As Richie headed to the door, suitcase trailing behind, he paused briefly at the threshold, turning again to face Beverly. There she stood, as brave as ever, a gentle smile fixed on her face.

“I don’t think I’ll ever see you again, will I?”

Beverly gave no response, ushering Richie out the door. Standing in the corridor alone, he fought back tears as he took a deep breath. Crying could wait. Fabulous places indeed. It was 4am when Darren rushed into the bar, shouting at Richie to bring Eddie and to be quick about it. They piled into a cab and Darren slipped the driver an extra 20, presumably to keep him quiet as he asked for them to be driven to the aircraft storage facility.

When they were safely bundled out, Darren waited for the cab to disappear completely before speaking. Richie was lamely supporting Eddie as best he could, nearly freezing to death as the biting cold descended on upon them. Behind Darren stood a small plane, for domestic use, but his nervousness suggested that it didn’t actually belong to him.

“Should I ask where you got the plane?” Richie questioned, chuckling.

“Um, uh... no! Get him in! I’m just gonna have a smoke.”

Richie went off with Eddie as Darren paused for a moment, placing his hands into his pockets and looking up the sky. He was told as a child that if you ever felt some kind of sad, all you had to do was to look for stars and you’d realise how insignificant everything was. There were no stars tonight.

“Right, so, I know this talking to dead people thing is really not a good sign but I haven’t flown since you.. well, y’know. Anyway, just let this go okay.” Darren addressed no one at all as he took a look at his pilots license. 

He had looked so much like his brother that it only made sense that he should do him proud, carry out his dream. Sometimes Darren wished he could do the kinda job that meant something, but those were reserved for people who had privilege and money. It didn’t matter now, he had another chance.

As Darren climbs into the plane, he notices that Richie is fast asleep on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Isn’t the orchestra sad today?” Darren mumbled to himself, starting the plane up and hoping to god that he wouldn’t accidentally crash.

“What else should they be?”

Darren turned around to see Eddie smile lazily and place a finger on his lips.

“Hopeful.”


	12. Goodbye to Derry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end! thanks for sticking with me.  
> You can tell me what you thought either here or on tumblr/twitter: whilewilde.  
> Feedback is appreciated. Have a wonderful week!

The water lay still under the bridge, undisturbed and glistening in the sunshine, unusual for this time of year. It was January, but the sun had won its latest battle with the cloud and gloom that usually accompanied it, and it was beautiful. As tourists and lovers of all kinds strolled up and down the canal, pausing to point at a duck or marvel at how clear the water was, the cafés on the riverside were quiet.

Not quite deserted, just the comfortable compromise between heaving and having no customers at all. The black iron chairs were hardly the picture of comfort, but Richie had grown used to it and the view was unbeatable for a bit of people watching, so he stayed.

These days, he reflected, the world was a lot calmer. The people laughed, and they hugged their loved ones and they finally were brave enough to tell people that they loved them. Yes, he reflected, these days things were looking up. Humanity was innocent once more. The children could grow up without fear.

“What are you thinking about?” Eddie’s voice jerked Richie from his daydream.

“How lucky I am.” Richie smiled lazily at the figure in front of him briefly.

The comfortable silence followed as it often did, and Richie closed his eyes and allowed himself to hear the sounds of a city, now alive. He felt Eddie’s hand in his, soft and warm, and he felt as if everything in the universe, the good and bad, had to happen in order to lead to this moment of pure peace.

When he managed to sneak a glance at his counterpart, Eddie had his head thrown back, sunglasses on and a sweet smile on his face. Occasionally he would yawn, causing Richie to yawn in turn, and they would laugh. They were happy.

“Do you ever think about back then?” Richie asked quietly, as if worried that he would shatter Eddie’s demeanour.

“No... not really. I don’t think it’s worth it.” Eddie ran his free hand around his face, as if searching for the bruises that were once covered by the makeup of the Emcee.

As soon as they had made it to Europe, Eddie began to look different. A happy kind of different. He no longer moved like an awkward marionette - in fact Richie had to correct his posture most times- and his face which was usually thin with hollowed out cheeks, was now bright and more filled out. What was once so grey that it seemed to fit into the depressing surroundings of Derry was no longer. He was home.

“Do you?” Eddie asked, turning to look at Richie, hands still entwined.

Richie hardly had time to even think of a decent response before Eddie gave him a knowing look, revealing that it was more rhetorical than anything else. One could grow so tired of rhetoric, especially when you are crushed by the weight of not being able to talk. Similar, Richie supposed, to the custom of asking someone how they are doing, and whilst they might be practically crumbling inside to tell you that things aren’t alright, actually, they realise that the question is not asked in order to receive any answer other than “I’m okay.” They were past the pretending, Richie had hoped, so he soldiered on regardless of any look that was thrown his way telling him to do otherwise.

“I think she’s dead, y’know?” Richie’s voice wobbled as he tried to fight back tears.

It has been months since, but the pain was still there. Nowadays, it wasn’t so blatant, but it still crept up on him in moments of solitary. The quiet which had once upon a time been reserved for peace and quiet, and calm, was now nothing at all. Richie was aware of the coldness, and the blackness. The pain never stopped, and it only got worse when he thought about Beverly, alone and awaiting the end of the world. It was all very well for people to sit back and say that all anyone needed was a distraction, when they didn’t know Bev like the couple did. They never heard her laugh, never saw her bravery and her smile. They never experienced her kindness, or her stubbornness if you got her onto the topic of politics or music or anything other that she considered herself an expert in.

If she said something was right, then it was right, and you simply accepted that that’s the way things were and always had been. In fact, nine times out of ten, you were the one apologising even if you went into the argument one-hundred percent certain that you were correct.

Nobody would get a chance to remember these things, anyway. Eddie and Richie knew that she would simply be added to the history pile and long forgotten about, as everyone before her did. The fear that they too might forget haunted them permanently, so much so that Richie would awake in the night, covered in sweat and struggling to breathe, trying to cling to any memory as Eddie wrapped him in his arms, waiting for it to pass. One day, they both knew, they too would forget how she sounded, or something that she did, and they would be reminded by the other and may even argue over the facts of the event. Then they would know that she was really gone.

“I don’t think she thought it would end any other way.” Eddie mumbled, stroking my arm as he looked out onto the canal.

“I hope she wasn’t scared, that’s all.”

Even before leaving his mouth, Richie knew how stupid a statement it was. Of course she was. There was no shame in being scared, and it made little difference to the outcome. Eddie told him so during those nights when he couldn’t sleep, and he panicked as he wound himself up thinking about it, and of course he knew Eddie was right, but he couldn’t force his brain into thinking any different.

“She would’ve hated you moping, you know. She’d get drunk and shout at you, call you a sleaze ball, and then demand that you take her to the Cabaret.” Eddie’s lips raised into a smile as he spoke, no doubt thinking of the first time that they had all met. It seemed so long ago now.

“Alright, stop fuckin’ inserting yourself into the story.”Richie sniped, hitting Eddie’s arm gently, causing him to burst out laughing.

“Oh yes and she showed you the very handsome emcee and you fell-“ Eddie flung himself back in his chair, slumping forward slightly and raised the back of his hand to his forehead, as if he was an 18th century character who had collapsed from exhaustion “-madly in love! fast forward a few years and they are living in parts unknown. Pretty good turnout, eh?”

“I think Beverly would call it ‘delightful sin’ actually-“ Richie replied, imitating a southern drawl “-but yeah, all things considered… two out of three ain’t bad.”

Often, Eddie thought it unfair how the entire world could carry on much as they had before, whilst the wold as they knew it had ended for the three of them. How unfair, that they should wander around without the weight of the grief that haunted the lives of the two men every day without fail. When Beverly died - or more precisely, when they assumed she had- they expected everything to just stop, and were bitterly disappointed when it hadn’t. Disappointment quickly turned to anger, which in turn turned to resentment for ever having made it back. Such a feeling had even caused Eddie to attempt to track down Darren once in order to take them back, but by some miracle he had since disappeared.

“Have you had any luck with that writers block?” Eddie asked, a sudden reminder of why they had remained in one place for longer than usual.

Richie wasn’t sure if he intended to write a book, or if he simply needed a break from being on the run all the time, but he had played that card and had since found the perfect thing to write about. It was something so wonderful, so devilishly brilliant that he was surprised that he hadn’t actually thought of it sooner. 12 months sooner, precisely.

“Yeah, I did. I’ve almost finished actually.” Richie held back a grin when he saw how surprised this information made Eddie. To be fair, he hardly believed himself when he first said it.

“What’s it about then, idiot?”

“It’s about this guy and he’s a writer but he’s got nothing new at all, so one day he heads down to this sleazy club. There he meets the most beautiful women he’s ever seen in his life, which is pretty fuckin’ important because he doesn’t swing that way, and anyway, the whole night she’s watching this performer.” Richie began, seeing Eddie following his speech eagerly.

“The performer is what she would call an emcee, but the writer is quite sure that he’s never seen something so weird and wonderful in his entire life. Naturally, they both fall in love with the emcee, but not in the same way. That’s just a subplot though, because it’s really about the girl. How she made it in a deadbeat city, and how she was going to do something better. How she faced up to all the people who said she couldn’t do shit!” Richie was ranting now, trying not to upset himself.

“How does it end?” Eddie asked, his tone hushed and gentle.

“It doesn’t. Not really, anyway.”

“How can a book not have an ending?!” Eddie interrupted, practically leaping from his seat.

“Why should it? I want the reader to feel as if they know Be- the girl. That way, she’s not really dead, you understand? maybe they see themselves in her courage, or in her gentle heart. The point is that way she’s immortalised as wanted to be.”Richie relaxed slightly “-you remember the times Bev told us that this time was her really big break? That she would be the talk of the town? Well, don’t you get it? This is my last chance.”

“I understand. What happens to the emcee and the handsome writer?”

“I never said handsome, but… they end up happily ever after.” Richie responded, satisfied with his answer.

“Don’t be a dick!”

“Okay, so there’s some really shit bits, not everything is plain sailing, but they’re happy. Besides, this writer in particular has happened to have enough of unhappy endings. It’s about time for something good to happen, right?” Richie raised a glass of champagne from the table beside him in mock toast.

“To happy endings.” Eddie added, smiling.

“Happy endings. May we all have our own.”


End file.
